Blood Makes You Related, But Loyalty Makes You Family
by weirdmixofsodapopanddallas
Summary: Dallas Winston was the toughest hood in all of Tulsa before he died. Nobody knew much about where he came from other than it was New York, he was in a street gang, and he'd been to jail at the age of ten. But what really happened?
1. Cowboy Kid

_Authors Note: Story #2! Yay! Either way, this is about Dallas's past from Dallas's point of view. I thought a messed up kid deserved a messed up back story, so I made him one. Too much? I dunno._

 _Please review and tell me what you think._

 **Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsiders, only the characters you don't recognize. If you have issues with someone mentioning abuse, don't read this. You have been warned.**

From ages 0-7, I swear on everything that's holy I was happy. I don't remember it all that great - it's been so long - but I swear I was happy. My mother loved me. My father loved me. My baby brothers loved me. I had my friends. I had my books and movies and clouds and sunsets and stars. I was very different from the person I am now. If you were a person, I cared about you. Now, with most people, I really couldn't care less.

Now, I know what you're thinking: baby brothers? What? Very simple, really.

I had a set of twin baby brothers. There names were Anthony and Joey, they were three years younger than me, and they ruled my world. Without them, I'm nothing.

It's honestly really depressing for me to look back on that time now. Think about all the stuff I wish I still had, everything I would do different if I had the chance to go back and give it another shot.

I had seven golden years. Maybe seven really is a lucky number. It was only _after_ I turned seven that the whole world went to hell in a handbasket.

The first thing that changed was that Dad started drinking again. He'd quit way back when because he was an alcoholic and he always did really stupid stuff when he was drunk and he didn't wanna hurt himself. Personally, I don't think he much cared if he hurt anyone else.

I started finding the empty bottles lying around. I didn't know what they were and I was curious, so when I found one that was still half full, I downed the whole thing, just to find out what the big deal was. Sure made me loopy, and I wound up puking in the bathroom. That's how my mom found me, bent over the toilet, empty bottle on the ground next to me. I only figured out later it was tequila.

And you know what? She wasn't even mad at me. I thought for sure she was gonna rip me a new one, but instead she just yelled at my dad about not leaving alcohol where 'her little cowboy kid' could find it. I watched from the hallway. That was the first time I ever saw my old man hit my mom.

Cowboy kid. That was her nickname for me. At first I hadn't understood. Even back then I knew what I was. What dressing like I did and living where we did and doing what I did meant. I was a hood. Plain and simple. I wasn't nothin' like a cowboy. When I asked, she told me that Dallas was a city in Texas, and Texas is a state full of cowboys. She said I'd been born there, but I wouldn't remember it 'cause we'd moved right after, and I was a cowboy by blood. Being a little kid, I always told the truth and always said what was on my mind, and my response to her story was that it did sound cool, but I wasn't no cowboy, I was a pint-sized hood. She'd hugged me and told me that no I wasn't and bawled for half an hour. At least, that I remember. It probably went on longer, but I was little and it was late and after half an hour I'd passed out asleep.

I don't think I'll ever forget the first time my dad hit me. It was the last day of school before Christmas vacation. Our teachers had given us our report cards, and I ran home all proud and excited to show my parents 'cause I'd got all A's without even working hard. My teachers all told me I was so smart, and if I really applied myself I'd go far in life.

I ran in, shouting at Mom that I had something awesome to show here, when my old man's fist came flying out of nowhere and just floored me. I think he was hungover and that's why he was so pissed at me for being loud.

My mom came out of the kitchen then - I guess she'd heard me call for her - and she saw me on the ground and the old man standing over me. My cheek was throbbing and I knew I already had a spectacular bruise blooming across my face. She started yelling at my father about never hurting her little baby again. He wound up hitting her too. She shouted at me to go to my room, quick. I started to argue. I wanted to stay and help. I knew I was already pretty good in a fight, but to be fair, those weren't against people as big as my old man. Plenty of them were bigger than me, but none of them were _**that**_ big. My mom yelled at me to go again, and I couldn't help but listen. I loved her. How could I say no? And besides, she sounded scared, and that scared me.

I'd love to tell you that was the only time my dad hit me, but that would be the biggest lie I've ever told, and considering, that's saying something. He beat on me and the old lady all the time. I did my best to make sure he didn't get a chance to go after Anthony and Joey. I stole a lock and fixed it on our bedroom door. I shared a bed with them so he couldn't come and get them without my knowing in the middle of the night. I wouldn't put it past him. I just stayed outta the house most of the time, hanging with my friends, and I brought the kids with me. We'd spraypaint alleys and key cars and shoplift candy. My mother was wrong about one thing. I _was_ a pint-sized jd.

I got a great Christmas present from Anthony and Joey the year I turned ten.. They bought me a stainless steel skull ring with an adjustable band. It could fit a child or an adult. I put it on and never took it off, wanting to show them how much I liked it and how much I loved them.

Now I leave it on for a different reason

I woke up one morning right after I'd turned ten (Anthony and Joey were seven) and noticed that Anthony was breathing funny and he was real hot. Understandably, this scared the hell out of me, so I picked him up and carried him (heavy child) into Mom's room. I didn't have to worry about Dad: he always slept on the couch. I showed Mom what was going on.

She got all scared, saying that he had pneumonia and we had to take him to the hospital. I didn't understand what pneumonia was, but I did understand that my baby brother was in trouble and Mom knew what to do to help him, so I didn't fight her on it. I pulled his jacket on him while Mom went to wake up Joey, and in five minutes, we were ready to go.

Here's where we hit a 'little bump'.

The old man woke up, and, seeing that we were about to go, went and sat down in front of the door with his bottle of jack daniels. Apparently, nobody was going nowhere.

None of us were big enough to make him move, and the fire escape in the back had been broken by a gang not too long ago. So I took Anthony over to the couch instead. I sat there with him for two days, taking care of him. I told him stories and watched TV and read books with him, or just sat and talked, trying to keep his fever down and get him to eat something. Mom would've helped more, but Dad kept her busy getting stuff for him, so I was on my own.

On the morning of the third day, he died. Just quit breathing right there in my arms. I begged him to come back, I called for Mom, but there wasn't anything anyone could do. He was just gone.

I did my best to act normal from then on. I still had Joey to take care of. To protect. To keep alive. And I threw myself into that like nothing before. No matter what happened, this brother was gonna stay with me.

Now, I had this screwy fascination with lightning. I just loved it. I would watch storms out the window just to see it, and the sound of thunder was just about my favorite ever. I wanted to be out in it. I would ask my mom if I could go out and have fun and she'd always tell me no, under no circumstances. After a little bit I quit asking and just started trying to sneak out. My mom caught me every time, never mad, but always disappointed. I wish she'd yelled. Anything would've been better than the quit disappointment. It made me feel real bad. But not so bad I quit trying. And finally, one night, I succeeded. I wish I hadn't. The night didn't end well.

I was ten. I'd been watching my dad beat my mom through the keyhole of my bedroom door for the last fifteen minutes, and by the time that stopped my mom just stumbled off to bed and my dad drank until he passed out on the couch. I could hear the beginnings of a thunderstorm starting outside, and I realized this was it, this was my chance. I took advantage of the fact Joey was asleep and all the drinking and the abuse in a way I never should have and took off out the front door.

Being out in that storm was everything I thought it would be and more. It was one of the rare times when the event actually lives up to the expectation. The lightning was crashing down so close to me that, looking back on it, I can see it was a miracle I wasn't struck dead then and there. There's something exhilarating about being so close to death you could reach out and touch it. I enjoyed every damn minute of it.

Finally, after an hour or so, I wound up downtown, where I ran into a few thirty-year-old guys on a street corner. We talked for a couple minutes and they seemed nice enough. In fact, I really like them. They seemed like real tuff guys. Then one of them asked me to go to the gas station across the street and steal them some cigarettes. I wanted them to think I was tuff too, so I ran across the street to do what they asked.

Now, generally, I can tell a plainclothes cop when I see one, but this time I missed him, I was so intent on what I was doing. He saw what I was up to, slapped me in handcuffs, and hauled me in.

It was the most awkward conversation I've ever had, calling my mom and telling her I'd gone out in a storm like she'd specifically told me not to while she was too beat up and tired to stop me and got arrested for shoplifting cigarettes that weren't even for me. And the look of disappointment on Joey's face was torture.

I went to jail for that one. My first jail term ever. Lucky me, I was only in there about a month. I met a fifteen-year-old named Ben who'd got himself life for violently murdering two boys when he'd jumped them down an alley. He was a great guy. We got to be good friends. Unlucky me, I was in over my birthday. I'd already turned eleven by the time I got out.

And I didn't go back to school. I know I should've, but I didn't. I just didn't care. Looking back on it, I half wish I'd kept going. I could've gone places, my teachers were right, I was smart. I just didn't have the drive. Still don't. I suppose I could go to one of those places where they specially finish up education for dropouts, but I just don't care enough. Like I said, I don't have the drive. At least, not for school. I have the drive for other stuff, but not for school.

After I got out I spent the first few days out with my mom and Joey, hanging around and catching up. She wasn't even all that mad at me. Just disappointed, as per usual. Joey acted like nothing had happened, like he'd already forgotten about it. I had fun, but I also felt like absolute shit.

After that I took Joey and went and found my friends. I had three best friends I did everything with: Danny, Lake, and Mark. When we found them, they were spraypainting down an alley, and they got real awkward when we came up and said hey. Lake and Mark just sorta clammed up, and Danny turned to me, looking all guilty. He told me that I was a bad influence and they were done with me.

Well, I sure as hell wasn't expecting that. I tried to tell him that stealing cigarettes wasn't all that different from stealing candy, which we did all the time, and that it was like candy to these guys, _who they were for_. They weren't even for me in the first place.

Danny wouldn't listen to me. He just told me I was a bad influence and they were done with me again. I was so pissed I couldn't see straight. That's when I started smoking, just to spite them. I had fun blowing smoke in their faces every time I saw them after that.


	2. Dark Places

_Authors note: Chapter 2! I'm proud of this one. Please don't hate me for what I'm about to do to poor Dally. Believe me, I feel bad for it too. It breaks my heart._

 _And to that person who asked if Mark was the same person as in That Was Then, This Is Now, no, sorry, just made this kid up and Mark was the first name that jumped into my head._

 _And yes, I don't have a soul. ;)_

 **Disclaimer: I don't own The Outsiders or Dallas Winston, but I do own everybody else**

 _ **Chapter 2: Dark Places**_

I guess we've gotten to another one of the worst days of my life. The day my father killed my mother.

It was right around Christmas that same year, just about a month and a half since my eleventh birthday. I was on my way home from a day of doing stupid stuff and getting chased around by the cops. Joey was over at one of his friends houses for once. On the way, I did some more stupid stuff, but there were no cops to chase me around now.

When I got home, it was to find my old man beating the living daylights outta my mom, the worst one yet. I shoulda just knifed him then and there. I know that now. Would've saved me a lot of trouble. Instead, I gave him a chance. I was young. Back then, I had a hard time with the concept of wasting my old man, but now, I'd do it in a second. What with how he ruined my life and all. I gave him another shot at being decent and told him to leave her alone. I shouldn't've given him a chance.

He whirled to face me and had shattered a scotch bottle over my head before I even had a chance to register what was going on and I went down into a peaceful darkness..

When I came to, I was tied by my hands to the kitchen table, and my old man was still slamming my mom. I started screaming, begging him to stop through my tears. She stopped moving. This was wrong. This was all wrong. It wasn't right for a man to do this to his wife and sons. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. But, of course, the only reason I knew that was because of TV. For all I knew, _**that**_ was the thing that was totally wrong. But that didn't change that I didn't like this.

This went on for an hour or more. I tried so hard to get loose, but nothing was working. Finally my dad quit and drank until he passed out on the couch. My mom still hadn't moved.

I tried so hard to get out without hurting myself, but it just wasn't working, so finally, desperate, I broke my wrist to get out. I crawled over to her, holding my arm to my chest. I shook her shoulders, gently calling her name, begging her to be okay. She was one of the only people I had left, one of the only people I cared about in this world, one of the only people who'd always treated me good and never let me down. I couldn't lose her, not now. I checked if she was breathing. Nope. i checked for a pulse. There wasn't one. Really sobbing now, I tried to do clumsy, one-handed cpr. It wasn't working. Finally realizing that it was time to just give it up as a bad job, I collapsed across her and just bawled for an hour straight. I really needed to let it all out before I spontaneously cumbusted. After that, I called the cops. It was the only time I ever did that.

My dad was woken up by the door, and before he really had a chance to react, I'd yanked the fuzz inside and shown them my mom's body and gasped out my story. I"d started crying again and I was just too shattered to stop. Honestly, I was disgusted with myself. Crying in front of my father and the cops, showing them that I really did have a breaking point. I found one piece of consolation in this whole mess: I'd sure nailed my dad good this time.

At least, I thought I had. The cops seemed pretty much ready to haul him off to jail, but he got his two cents in, and he spun a very convincing story

It was obvious I wasn't lying: no eleven-year-old was _**that**_ good of an actor. So he made it seem like I was just confused. He explained that another man had broken into the house and hit him on the head so hard he was dazed and couldn't move, leaving him, attempting not to blackout, on the couch My father had supposedly watched as I'd been nailed the minute I'd walked in the door, before I got a chance to register the other man wasn't my father. I'd been tied, unconscious, to the table. When I came to, I was still too out of it, he said, to really be able to compute what was happening before it was all over. He said that's when he'd finally passed out, unable to hold on any longer, able to find some comfort in the fact that at least his son was safe.

I told the cops he was lying, tried to get them to understand that it was a scam, but they weren't listening. They never do. So my dad got off scott-free, and I was left with one thing less than before.. I'd always thought my mother would be there for me forever. There's never been another time that I felt so alone, before or since.

That's when Joey and I just quit going home. What was the point? There wasn't anything there for us anymore. We hung around long enough to go to my mother's funeral, knowing she would like that, then I packed everything that ever meant anything to us and took off with my brother. The only thing I took that wasn't mine was an old necklace of my mom's that I got out of her jewelry box. I never took it off again..

I joined a gang and we slept in their 'headquarters' - which was an old, abandoned a warehouse - and I had the time of my life. I didn't let Joey join. Part of the reason I joined was to keep him safe, taking advantage of the rules that gangs across New York lived by. It didn't matter if they were in your gang or a rival gang, you didn't touch their family members. No innocent bystanders. At least, not of that kind.

I got rid of the books I'd brought pretty quick. I got weirdly bitter about it. Whenever I'd read before that, I found comfort in knowing that _somebody_ in it was going to get the happy ending, but now it just made me angry. Why was it that the fake people got to be happy and all us real people got screwed? Couldn't _I_ get the happy ending? Just once? Now, was that so hard? Was that really so out of line?

I also quit it with the sunsets. I hated the way the light faded out into darkness. It was too… familiar. I honestly preferred sunrises after that. Still do.

I quit it with the stars. I felt like they were lying to me. There wasn't any light in this dark world I called home. A place of pain and misery and hopelessness.

I didn't pay any attention to the clouds. It made me feel stuck, closed in, and I never wanna be stuck anywhere. I'm never gonna get tied down. Ever.

And movies? Well, I just didn't have time for them anymore.

Everything that used to make me feel better just depressed me. I got into different things: fighting, stealing, vandalism. That gang knocked every bit of me that was sensitive or caring or sweet right out the window. I got reckless and wild. I got thrown in the cooler a lot.

It sure was fun.

And that was all I needed for the longest time. The gang. My semblance of family. And, of course, little Joey, who will always be the best thing I ever had.

And then one day, when I was fourteen, Joey introduced me to a girl he thought would be good for me. The direction my life was taking was scaring him. Her name was Sophia. She was kind and sweet and lovely as a dream of heaven. She had this real shimmery, blonde hair that went all the way down to her waist and these bright blue eyes that sparkled and shined. She came from the upper eastside and was considered one of the 'good kids'. But I didn't care and I knew I had to have her.

Now, before you start accusing me of objectification, I need to say that I didn't just want her because she was gorgeous. That was only half of it.

It was also her personality. She was everything I had been but would never be again. She was kind and gentle, loving and curious, read books all the time, and watched movies, sunsets, and stars. She still believed the world could be a better place. She hadn't learned her lesson yet. Damn, was she in for rude awakening. She was smiling and happy and just all around interested in helping others.

If I'm being honest, I'm pretty sure that when I finally got her to go out with me, I was more of a charity project than anything. But, hey, y'know, I'll take it.

There was just one difference between her and me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

I felt like we went well together. She started bringing me back from that dark place I'd run away to. She was the only girl I've ever loved. I'd had a couple girlfriends before that, but none I'd cared about quite like I cared about her. She was everything to me. We went steady for about eight months. She cheated on me four times. I forgave her four times 'cause I loved her just that much. They were just other charity cases like me, but she didn't go steady with any of them, so I knew I was special. I meant more to her than they did, and that was good enough for me.

I heard through the vine that my dad got in some serious trouble and ran, and was now in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The most boring city in the most boring state in the America. Well, screw him. As long as he was far away from Joey and me.

Before I go any farther, I should probably mention something else about my good friend Danny. I'm sure you remember him. Jackass who decided he didn't wanna be friends anymore because I got arrested for stealing cigarettes?. He was in the rival gang (filthy hypocrite), and he wanted to be the most respected hood on our side of town. Thing was, I was closer to that title, and he hated me for it.

He wanted to kill me. There's the honest truth. He just wanted me gone. It's interesting to me how a guy can go from being your best buddy, the person who helped you take care of your kid brothers and who you told all your secrets, to wanting to kill you. I didn't want anything bad or good to happen to him. If I'm being honest, at this point, I just didn't give a damn about the guy anymore. I was completely indifferent.

Then he took things too far and I was ready to kill him too.

He broke the rules. Shattered them. He knew that if he really wanted to get me, he had to go after the one thing he remembered had meant everything to me.

So he went after Joey.

You can't imagine what it was like that night. I couldn't find Joey. I'd never had that problem before. I could always look at his friends' houses and find him at one of them. But this time I couldn't, and I was scared shitless.

I took a shortcut down an alley, looking through downtown New York, ready to rip Joey a new one if I found him here 'cause we'd talked about this, when Danny and five of his buddies, among them Lake and Mark, jumped out from behind a dumpster.

I didn't stand a chance.

Next thing I knew, I was waking up in the bed of a truck, tied hand and foot, with duct tape over my mouth. We were outside New York. I didn't know where they were taking me.

Finally, we pulled over on the side of the road and Danny got out. He told me that they'd hunted down Joey, taken him out here, and shot him. He pointed down into the ditch on the side of the road. I could see a little blonde-haired body.

I think I was in shock the entire time they drove me back to the city, congratulating themselves on their skills. I couldn't believe that he was gone. My Joey. The last of my family.

Danny and his asshole friends dumped me in the same alley they'd gotten me out of and left me there. By the time I managed to pull myself together enough to go back out there and get my brother, the body was gone. I still don't know what happened to it.

After that, Sophia was my life. I threw everything I had into our relationship, just trying to pick up the scattered fragments of the life I once had by getting some new pieces along the way. But then, one night, something happened that left me royally screwed.


	3. Please Forgive Me For All I've Done

_Author's note: Hi guys! Unfortunately, we have reached the last chapter of Dally's little story. Bummer, I know. But don't worry, I have a lot of other stuff to hit you guys with. Some of it's making me wanna cry, and that's never a good thing because I just don't do crying. Ever. At all. There's only a select few things that can really make me lose it. Ugh, I'm rambling, aren't I? Sorry. I'll let you all get to reading. It's not like I don't know that's what you wanna do anyhow._

 **Disclaimer: I don't own The Outsiders. You can tell because Dally wouldn't die if it were up to me.**

 _ **PLEASE REVIEW! I'M BEGGING YOU!**_

I knew something was wrong the minute Sophia said she wanted me to come over to her place 'cause she needed to talk to me. I'd never even been anywhere near her place 'cause she knew her parents would have her head if they knew she was going out with somebody like me. Even if it was for charity.

When I got there, her parents were sitting on the couch with her. They gave me a lot of looks, so I just flipped them off. They weren't any better than me. They didn't have a right to look at me that way.

Sophia was nervous. I could tell that right from the get-go. I held her, I kissed her, I told her that whatever it was, she didn't have to be afraid, that I loved her and trusted her. I didn't care if her parents were there. Honestly, I assumed that her parents were trying to break us up. That had happened to me with my last girlfriend.

Then she dropped the bomb and told me that she'd cheated on me again, and this time she was pregnant with the other guy's baby.

Well, that was definitely _**not**_ what I expected. I'd been real sure she was gonna say something along the lines of 'Daddy wants us to break up'.

There it was. That was the difference between her and me. I'm loyal. I believe in loyalty. You know what they say. Blood makes you related, but loyalty makes you family. She didn't have any concept of loyalty at all.

And I just snapped. I screamed myself hoarse at her right in front of her family. I really let loose. She was shocked. She'd never really heard me swear like that before 'cause I tried to watch it in front of her.

I heard a knock on the front door once I'd shouted myself into silence. She told me she'd asked the other guy to come tonight too, so we could work things out. She called for whoever-he-was to just come in.

It was Danny.

If I was mad before, it was nothing to how I was feeling now. Out of all the boys in New York, she'd had to choose the asshole who'd been my best friend, gave me up like a bad job, been out to kill me since I joined my gang, and _**murdered Joey.**_

I just lost it. I pounded that guy into next week. And that's when I grabbed the gun.

See, Sophia had this gun on her mantel. She'd showed me pictures, told me all about it. Belonged to her grandfather, apparently. She told me over and over that it wasn't loaded, almost like she was scared I'd miss that fact or that I hadn't understood the first five times.

I didn't intend to shoot the guy when I grabbed it. I didn't actually wanna kill him. I know that's hard to believe, on account of what he did to my brother, but it was because of Joey that I didn't want to. Enough killing. It wasn't what Joey would want. I just wanted to scare the hell outta him, I promise.

I told him I'd wanted him dead for a long time and I leveled the thing right at his forehead. He about shit his pants, and it was absolutely hilarious. I laughed and was all like, 'it's not loaded, dipshit, see?' and pulled the trigger to show him.

It blew a hole right through his head.

Well, I about passed out, I was so surprised. I just stood and stared.

Her parents called the cops on me and I took off. The fuzz came around the corner right as I finished hotwiring a car and I drove off as fast as I possibly could. They followed me, out of New York and into the woods. I jumped out of the car and let it slam into a tree, which made it explode. It was dark, they didn't see me jump out. They thought I died, so they turned back. Needless to say, I left New York a living legend.

I was just on the run after that, going from state to state, city to city, moving mostly south with a little west thrown into the mix, 'cause why not? I probably ran around for six months. I turned fifteen. I spent Christmas alone.

I felt like absolute trash. My mom had always said to me that I was such a good, young boy and she hoped that I always stayed so good and she couldn't wait to watch me grow up into a smart, successful, good man. I sure was glad she wasn't around to see what I'd become. She'd've been disappointed and ashamed of me. I wouldn't've blamed her. I was disappointed and ashamed of me too.

Finally I reached Tulsa, Oklahoma. And that's when I remembered Dad.

I had nowhere to go. Nowhere at all. I hated him, but maybe, just maybe, I could camp out here. Just for a little bit, till I could get back on my feet and go someplace else…

So I found his house and dropped my stuff on the spare bed there, telling him that I was gonna stay with him for a bit. I told him I wasn't going to use his last name anymore, though. I was done being Dallas Jones. I was gonna use Mom's maiden name, and I would be Dallas Winston. He just nodded. He was too drunk to care. I got outta there, thinking I'd head downtown and hunt some action. There had to be _**something**_ to do here.

I was taking a shortcut through an alley when a bunch of rich kids showed up and started harassing me. I knew they were going to jump me and I tensed, ready for a fight. Before I knew it, we were going at it. A couple other boys who looked around my age seemed to just come out of nowhere and helped me take the guys down, even though I was holding my own pretty good, considering i was outnumbered five-to-one by a bunch of eighteen-year-olds.

The two boys who helped out introduced themselves as Two-Bit and Sodapop. Weirdass names, but they seemed alright and convinced me to come on back to Sodapop's house for dinner. They seemed pretty cool, so I just decided to stay in Tulsa, even though living with my old man was originally supposed to be temporary.

There were two little boys I met that night that I just latched onto. They reminded me of myself in some ways, and I wanted to protect them. Johnny and Ponyboy. They were no Anthony and Joey, but they were special.

And I guess you know the rest, Ponyboy. I'm probably long since dead if you're reading this, 'cause I know I'd never let you anywhere near it if I was still around, so I guess here's a nice wave from beyond.

I know I probably shouldn't dump all my problems on you, but I needed _**somebody**_ to know, and I got the sense you'd understand best. I used to be so much like you. Please don't ever end up like me.

Tell the guys they were like my family and I did care.

And Pone, I just want you to know this: I probably never showed it and you probably never knew, but I love you. I love you like a damn brother.

Please forgive me for all I've done.

Wherever I am now, heaven or hell, I'm sure I miss you and can't wait to see you again. Remember I love you, and you're never alone. I'll always keep an eye on you.

-Dallas Tucker Winston

 ** _I sat back and stared at the letter in my hands. I hadn't expected to find something like this up here._**

 ** _I was upstairs in the attic, going through the box of Dally's things that he'd kept up here, not liking to go home very much. Darry'd said it'd be therapeutic. Soda'd asked what the hell that meant._**

 ** _I looked at all the other things spread around the floor. There was a photo I hadn't noticed when I dumped out the box. I picked it up now._**

 ** _It was of three boys, one about nine, the others about six. I recognized Dally immediately and assumed the other two were Anthony and Joey. They really were cute little kids. No wonder Dally loved them so much._**

 ** _I couldn't even imagine what it would be like to lose your brothers that way. I know if I lost Darry and Soda that way, I'd just quit living. It was a miracle Dally didn't just find the nearest convenient building to jump off of. Damn, was he strong._**

 ** _He'd loved me. Whoa. Sometimes I got a protective, caring vibe from him, but I'd always assumed it was just his loyalty to the rest of the gang, not any actual affection for me. Well, you learn something new every day._**

 ** _Soda came in the door. "Hey, Pone." He saw the letter and photo in my hands. "What're those?"_**

 ** _I just held them out silently. He came over, sat down next to me, and looked at the photo, confused. "That's Dal, but who're they?"_**

 ** _I handed him the letter too. His eyes widened as he scanned the page..._**

 _Author's afterthought: Before anyone starts cussing me out about Dally being out of character, I feel I need to say this: I always felt like Dally actually cared a lot more about Ponyboy than he let on and Ponyboy just didn't notice. I mean, c'mon. In the movie, his last word was Pony. So just, roll with me here._

 _If you have something you really need to say about it, be nice._

 _AND PLEASE REVIEW!_


End file.
